Gideon Sundback, an early designer of the modern zipper obtained a U.S. Pat. No. 1,219,881 for the ‘Separable Fastener’. In 1923 the name was rebranded as the “zipper” by the B.F. Goodrich Company which integrated the zipper into rubber boots and tobacco bags. In the 1930s the zipper was popularized in the fashion industry for closures in garments, handbags and other textile items. Now there are many different zipper types including zippers that use molded plastic teeth, metal teeth, plastic coil teeth and zippers that are sealed to be waterproofed among others. Zippers for clothing continue to improve beyond the prior art and more recently also offer a means to electrically connect to electronics and digital devices.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,327 issued to Leonard et al describes a zip fastener for a garment that positions a pair of electrical conductors on a zipper in order to cause a zip opening to signal an electronic circuit and emit a warning signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,596,955 issued to Eves et al. describes a zipper fastener comprising conductive thread or conductive ink to establish an electrical connection between adjoining teeth. The moving zipper fastener increases or decreases the electrical resistance along the path so that the zip fastener behaves as a potentiometer that can then be used to modify the volume of a built in audio system in a garment.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,304,600 issued to Nehls et al. describes a zipper operated remote controller for garments that can be used to transmit command signals to a Bluetooth™ enabled device such as a cell phone or television.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,320,158 issued to Deto et al. describes a magnetic fastener comprising a pair of fastener tapes and two rows of magnetic elements, so that the magnetic elements are joined together via magnetism. The fastener can be used as a closure for the front of a garment.
One can appreciate that in an electronic and digital age that the prior art seek to electrically connect a garment with an electronic device however they fail to improve on the basic rudimentary function of the zipper for the persons using them. Zippers can be notoriously difficult to manipulate for persons with a limited dexterity in the fingers or a handicap. Zippers are much easier to zip with a two handed motion and when there is not too much force needed for the action of zipping or unzipping. Also, the placement of the zippers on the body can also affect the degree of ease in their manipulation. For example, zippers placed at the back of a dress or the back of a boot can be difficult to use and can require assistance from other persons. Similarly, some extreme applications where gas tight zippers are used such as in chemical and biological hazmat suit zippers can be extremely difficult to operate with the force required to open and close them. Additionally, zippers used in large structures such as tents and long cables can be burdensome to reach and arduous to control. In light of the foregoing, it will be appreciated that there is a need for a zipper to be automated and controlled more easily for persons of limited dexterity and in clothing such as the back of a dress, chemical and biological hazmat suits and large structures such as tents. An automated zipper including sensing and computation would add significant improvements over the prior art.